The first warship to traverse open waters without a
single crew member recently joined the U.S. Navy's fleet after eight
years of development and testing.

And now nearly every element of the vehicle, known as the Sea Hunter, has become classified.

"About all I can tell you
is that it has transitioned from [the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency] to the Navy, and that's a success in the world of
science and technology," said Rear Adm. Nevin Carr. "And that's a good
thing, because that means that there's a there there."

Carr talked to CNBC about the
vessel's status shift during the Sea-Air-Space conference, the largest
maritime expo in the United States. He is uniquely familiar with Sea
Hunter since he oversaw its testing as chief of the Office of Naval
Research and its current development as Leidos vice president and Navy
strategic account executive.

Leidos is the sole defense contractor helping to engineer the vessel.

The product of 'mad science'

The concept for the unmanned vessel was born in
2010 out of the Pentagon's so-called mad science wing, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.The Pentagon's request
from DARPA was colossal: Develop a drone warship capable of hunting
submarines, detecting torpedoes and avoiding objects at sea while
traveling at a top speed of 27 knots, or 31 mph.Six years later, the
crewless, 140-ton, 132-foot-long robotic ship, was christened as Sea
Hunter on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon."The project is classic
DARPA, not only game-changing but paradigm-bending," Paul Scharre writes
in "Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War.""Sleek and angular, it
looks like something time-warped in from the future," adds Scharre, a
former U.S. Army Ranger and senior fellow at the Center for a New
American Security. "With a long narrow hull and two outriggers, the Sea
Hunter carves the oceans like a three-pointed dagger, tracking enemy
submarines."On hand for the ship's
2016 christening was then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, who
referred to the vessel's narrow bow as a "Klingon Bird of Prey" from the
"Star Trek" series."This will operate
wherever the United States Navy operates," Work told reporters after the
ceremony. "It can operate in the South China Sea. It can operate in the
Baltic Sea. It can operate in the Persian Gulf. And it can operate in
the middle of the Atlantic or the middle of the Pacific.""These will be everywhere," he added.After its unveiling in
2016, Sea Hunter was transferred to the Navy for nearly two years of
testing off the coast of California. Since the drone ships' inception,
the Navy and Leidos have been hesitant to provide updates on its future
role.

A fraction of the cost of a destroyer

This autonomous warship can spend months at sea without a crew

Sea Hunter's $20 million price tag is a fraction of
the cost compared with a new Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which would
cost the Pentagon approximately $1.6 billion.

The drone ship also has
an estimated operating cost ranging from $15,000 to $20,000 a day
whereas a destroyer costs $700,000 a day to operate.

Last year, Vigor, a firm
known for stealthy experimental watercraft, was awarded a $35.5 million
Navy contract to build the second hull for Sea Hunter II.

And while another
unmanned vessel is on the way, it remains to be seen what missions the
Navy has envisioned for Sea Hunter and its sister ship.

"The original model was
that this would be an automatic submarine hunter," Carr said. "What we
learned along the way is that the real power wasn't in any particular
mission, it was having an autonomous pickup truck that could go away for
long periods of time and have a persistent capability for whatever
mission the Navy wants to do."

Sea Hunter is currently
not equipped with weapons, but Work, the former deputy Defense
secretary, described a scenario in which one day it could be armed.

"We might be able to put a
six pack or a four pack of missiles on them. Now imagine 50 of these
distributed and operating together under the hands of a flotilla
commander," Work said. "This is going to be a Navy unlike any navy in
history, a human-machine collaborative battle fleet that will confound
our enemies."

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